


Estel

by imsfire



Series: Fragments of the tale of the Ring [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, I must be crackers, just one scene anyway for now, not sure if this is technically a fusion or a crossover, potentially LOTR with Rogue One characters, suspect it's a mixture of both, the Captain of Gondor meets a strange woman in Imladris
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 15:43:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15343068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: Cassian of Gondor has come to Imladris seeking answers to a strange dream.  On the eve of the great Council of Elrond he meets a strange woman, and finds a broken sword.





	Estel

It had been a wearisome journey, and it was strange to be here at last, in this place so ancient and so famed, among these legendary people.  Rivendell, Imladris; the elves sang night and day like wood-birds , and even the names had a song-like sound.  Half of Cassian’s soul seemed to have found peace for the first time in years, here in this hidden high valley with the Misty Mountains gleaming above it in the clear air. 

The other half of him was in revolt against it.

Every living soul in Gondor was fighting, suffering, enduring, through year after year of war and fear.  All so that far away and safe in this alpine fastness, these lordly folk who’d never lifted a blade could live in comfort, unafraid.  So they could ponder over ancient documents and artefacts, sing their sweet music and make their bright jewels, their delicate embroideries and blown glass and porcelain. 

They welcomed guests and gave them of the best, these elf lords and ladies; they smiled and made merry, talked in hushed, distant tones of the fate of Middle Earth.  Raised perfectly plucked brows in surprise when he spoke of suffering and sacrifice, and the blood of his people.

The lords and ladies of the Noldor did not care to be reminded of such things.

He’d bathed when he arrived here, and put on clean clothing from his pack; the black and silver of the Tower Guard, the green linen of the Rangers of Ithilien.  His heart ached for home at the familiar honour of his clothes, the duty and rank they marked.  But still he felt – shabby, somehow, and dirty, beside these sweeping, alabaster-pale people in their shining silks.

_The elves were our allies once.  I should be grateful and honoured that they deign to hear me._

_But they **do** deign, ah how they deign!  How they stand over me.  It’s true that they are kind, but it is the kindness of a parent who will call the nursemaid over if their child chatters more._

Yet if he could not win them over, then his people would die, and the world itself fall.

_I cannot allow this vain pride of mine to guide me. I have to hope this good green earth can still be saved, that the steadfastness of Gondor will be rewarded at last.  Twenty generations and five have we waited and done our duty.  The White Tower cannot fall, it **cannot.**_

_I am the one who carries its hope on my shoulders.  I cannot fail_.

Dusk came slowly, here in the mountains; the westering sun sliding into the valley till the last notch of the hills held it like another elven gem.  The sky was a limpid blue above; slowly it dimmed and softened, glowing with the last spilled light of day.  Even as night approached, the heavens were still pellucid, as if lit from beyond; azure, then smoke-blue, then peach and rose and citron and finally the deepest of blues, inky and soft, with a single evening star in the north.  A waxing moon rose over the mountains, and the peaks above Rivendell were snow-silver against the night.

The elves were singing all around, far off down in the valley and here close-by in some chamber of the great house of Elrond.  Their voices rose, lyrical and pure as a chorus of birds, hailing the stars and the moon, and the bright mountains. Cassian could no more deny the beauty of their music than he could deny the loveliness of their robes, their statues, their fine houses.  It was all so wonderfully beautiful, and it pained him.

_Gondor too could be beautiful once more, could be lovely and happy as this, and free, filled with music and light.  I have to hold fast to that hope._

There was another of those fine statues up ahead, as he walked around the colonnaded terrace in the light of the moon.  All through the whole mansion and its dependent buildings one could find them, flanking doorways or windows, holding up the newel post of a staircase.  Blankly grave elvish faces, with noble brows and confident smiles of white marble; and for all their beauty, as often as not they were slightly unnerving.  Most of them looked over his head, just like the real elves; up at the mountains, or out down the valley and into the west.  Yet this one on the terrace stood with carved eyes downcast in sorrow and bearing in its hands a wide, flat dish. 

As Cassian approached the figure, a movement caught his eye, so small and guarded that his hand flew to his sword hilt as he turned.  But it was only a young woman, sitting curled on a window seat, reading silently.  All she had done was turn her page; but now she looked up as if feeling his eyes upon her.

Her face was impassive, almost as grave as the statue’s.  She studied Cassian intently for a moment with clear green eyes, then returned her gaze to her book as though he was of no interest at all.

He looked her over just the same.  Why should her dismissal deter him?  He had every right to know who else was here. 

Her clothing was good, but plain and travel-stained, and even seated it was clear to him that she was small of stature, too small to be anything but human.  Was she a messenger from some northern outpost, perhaps from this Bree he’d heard spoken of?  Another guest of the elves?

Though her eyes were bent on the page he was unable to shake the sense that she kept watch on him also.  He nodded in her direction, as if to acknowledge an unspoken greeting, and went on past her seat to come to the statue where it stood by the last pillar of the colonnade.

At once all thought of the quiet woman vanished from his mind.

Upon the broad dish in the statue’s hands lay three great fragments of steel, and as many smaller shards.  The last of the broken pieces was still embedded in a magnificent hilt, shaped for the grip of a man’s hand.  It was the pieces of a broken sword, and a gasp fell from Cassian’s lips at the sight.  In astonishment he started and spoke. “Can it be?  The shards of Narsil…”

His right hand had come up of its own accord, and he reached for the haft.  He flinched at his own bravado and drew back, with honour and awe and craving doing battle within him.  How greatly it would rally his people, to see the sword of Elendil return home!  It was a sight that strengthened even his heart, that had become cold and numb with fighting, these many years.

Hope, and a surge of pride at the memory of Gondor, threw down his shame.  He was not Isildur, nor Isildur’s heir, but he’d devoted his life to a cause greater than any old tale of lost kings.  Cassian steadied himself and reached forth again, and touched the hilt of Narsil, the sword of the ancient kings; touched it, and took it in his hand, and raised it.

The balance was off, because the blade lay in pieces, but he could still tell at once from the feel of it in his grasp that this had been a sword unlike any he’d held.  It settled to his hand as though it had but lain slumbering, waiting to be woken and craving a soldier’s call.  He flexed his wrist and saw moonlight scatter like some magical spell from the shine of the blade.

“Narsil,” he whispered again.  His hand thrilled at the touch of the worked metal.

He tried the edge with a fingertip and it was still sharp.  Razor-sharp; it pared back a film of skin.

_Could it be remade?_

There was movement at his back and he stirred from his rapt astonishment and hefted the sword as though it would defend him, broken though it was.  But it was only the strange woman, coming up beside him.  She had laid aside her book and now she looked with measuring eyes at Cassian, and at the sword-haft in his hand.  Her gaze was very cool in the moon’s light, and fiercely green, a living colour like the meadows and woods of Ithilien.

She wore a sword too, he saw now, hanging at her hip, a blade as long as her arm.  A plain bronze grip with neither gilding nor jewels on the pommel, in a sheath of dark green leather.   She was short enough that she must needs tilt her head to look at him, yet there was a quiet force about her, such as he’d seen in warriors’ eyes, and in the ancient statues of Rath Dínen.

“Narsil, indeed,” she said. “The sword of Elendil, and –“ and her calm voice sharpened, sudden and thin as a diamond point prickling him –“not your sword, I think.”

Cassian turned away, dropping the hilt as though it had twisted from his hand like a living creature.  It fell into the open dish with a ringing of steel and lay agley, across another of the fragments.  His face felt hot.  “No,” he said “Of course not my sword.  It’s broken, no use to anyone.  Just an old story.” It hurt to say it; how he had longed for a moment for that bright hope to be real.  Narsil, the sword of the king. “No man’s sword, now.”

“Very true,” the woman said after a moment, and she gave a half-smile that seemed to him to be both heartbreak and the mockery of every hope he still held. “No man’s sword is this.”

He stepped around her, and all his thought was grey with anger and helplessness, and heavy as the clouds of the East.  He strode down the terrace, away, moving as fast as he could walk.  For a moment he wanted never to have seen the damned statue, the damned sword; never to have come to Imladris, nor dreamed the dream that had sent him here. 

 _Captain of Gondor,_ his heart said, _your city is built on hope; you cannot abandon hope now._

Cassian stopped.  He was almost at the door.  He drew breath, forced his tense shoulders down and his fisted hands to relax; looked back, and saw the little woman stood now where he had been, close by the statue.  Her face was as sad as a statue herself.  She lifted up the hilt of the broken sword and replaced it carefully in its old position, very gently, as if it were a thing infinitely precious to her.

As she laid it back down again she hesitated, and then turned and looked his way.  Their eyes met across the shadows and the shafts of moonlight, and for a moment there was a ghost of light between them, as though sorrow had looked back and smiled.

_Captain of Gondor, hold fast!  There is still hope!_

His eyes clung to the motionless figure before him, though he could not have said why she drew him so.  But bitter doubt pulled him away.  Cassian knew all too well how hope still cries _Hold fast, do not despair_ ; how it will do so even when bleeding in the dust, even when going down into death.  How could he trust its voice within him, when it spoke the same tale always, whether living or doomed?

He turned once more, and went in, putting all thought of the broken sword from his mind.  Yet the woman on the terrace seemed bright for a moment as another evening star, a steadfast light in the fearful world, and her he could not forget.


End file.
